


So Cold

by cellard00rs



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Drabblish, M/M, Sibling Incest, rambles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 16:41:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1517729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cellard00rs/pseuds/cellard00rs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn’t really matter where it started.</p>
<p>It matters where it ended.</p>
<p>Or maybe how it ended.</p>
<p>Still, sometimes Sam can’t help but think about the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Cold

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know.
> 
> I was listening to Ben Cock’s So Cold and I wrote this thing where I wanted to explain the weird dichotomy that I feel takes place between the beginning of Supernatural where some fans sort of shipped Wincest to now where some fans are more into Destiel.
> 
> I’m at a point where I sort of like both - so this happened.
> 
> Be warned - it is verrrrry rambly.

It doesn’t really matter where it started.

It matters where it ended.

Or maybe how it ended.

Still, sometimes Sam can’t help but think about the beginning.

Think about being sixteen and in another nameless hotel room in another nameless city with no kind of clear future stretched out before him. It was going to just be like this. More of the same thing. Day in and day out. And yeah, normally he was angry about it and sometimes he tried to fight it but this time he was just down and out about it. He was low.

He had never felt so low and so cold. Not physically cold but emotionally. Like a stone was sinking down deep inside him and he’d been lying on the bed he shared with Dean, staring up at the ceiling and seeing nothing. And at first Dean had merely taken noted of it in the way where he rolled his eyes and told Sam not to be such a bitch but as time dragged on Dean merely sighed and laid down next to him.

He didn’t say a word (which was rare) and they just lay there, side by side, silent and staring up at nothing. Sam could feel Dean’s hand next to his, warm and big, their fingers close and Sam couldn’t help but knock them together as he whispered, “Why’re you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“This.”

Dean turned his head and Sam could tell he was glaring at him, “You mean the same goddamn thing you’re doing? Why? Does it matter?  What, am I too good to just lie here with my brother?”

Sam let out a tired sigh, “No, I’m not saying that. It’s just…you’re not, y’know…”

He waved a hand in the air, the same hand that had been close to Dean’s, and when he lowered it their fingers knocked against one another again. Sam didn’t even have to look at Dean to know the expression on his face was one of incredulity, “Don’t worry, princess. You still hold the crown for family Drama Queen. But don’t think for one second I don’t know what you’re thinkin’ or how you’re feelin’ and that I haven’t been there myself a time or two. I’m just the runner up in expressing it, that’s all.”

Sam let out a humorless huff that didn’t even come close to resembling laughter, “You’re probably more worried about Dad than anything else.”

Dean turned his head again, but this time in the other direction and it was clear he was looking at their father’s empty bed, “Might be. But I worry about you a helluva lot more and you know it.”

Sam closed his eyes, “You don’t need to worry.”

He heard the bed springs move and knew Dean was sitting up to look down at him, “Like hell I don’t. You can be one moody ass son of a bitch but lately you’ve been a little more than that. Most guys your age take their hormones in the beating it in the bathroom direction but you? Oh no, you got to be the laid out on a bed in the dark room type.”

Sam didn’t open his eyes but did run a hand over his face, “Just go away, Dean.”

Silence returned again for a while but eventually Dean broke it, voice quiet, “What is it you want, Sammy?”

Sam breathed out loudly, “I don’t know.”

“Come on.”

With his eyes closed it was so much easier to say everything he wanted to say, everything that weighed him down, “I want a real life. A real family. I want roots. I want a place to call home. I want school and grades and planning out certain nights to watch certain television shows. I want scheduled dinners and planned holidays and all the crap that we can’t have because we go out and fight demons so other people can have that stuff. But you know that already and we’ve talked about it a hundred times and there’s nothing else to talk about except…”

And here Sam stumbled and didn’t want to go on but Dean nudged him, _physically_ nudged him, and when that didn’t work he did it verbally, “Except?”

“Except I just…more than any of that other stuff I wish I had someone who understood me, who-who loved me.”

A hot silence rested between them and Sam prepared himself for the usual speech. The heated voice of his older brother telling him that _of course_ he had a real family and _of course_ he had someone who understood him and who loved him and how could he ask for things that he already had? What was he? Stupid? Selfish? How could he want more?

Instead the bed springs moved and he was sure Dean had gotten up and he was going to leave so Sam said the rest, “Love me for me, I mean. Not as a brother, not as a son but as a-a person. And I don’t mean a girlfriend. That’s too-too ephemeral. I mean someone who gets me inside and out and loves me passionately and desperately and…I guess I’m saying I want a soul mate which you probably think is ridicu- _mphhh_.”

 The words cut off in a hum of sound because Dean had somehow crawled on top of him and pressed their mouths together. It had happened so fast and Sam’s eyes had been closed so he wasn’t sure how it had even taken place. But it had. Dean was on top of him and their hands were close enough again that this time their fingers didn’t just knock together they interlaced and Dean kissed him again and not a brotherly, quick kiss on the lips which – granted – would have been weird anyway.

This was a real kiss. A true kiss. This was Dean’s tongue outlining the seam of Sam’s mouth until it dropped open. And somehow that wasn’t weird. It wasn’t even weird when their tongues met and dueled, as they tasted each other, as they breathed each other in, as their hands combed over one another’s bodies and tangled and tugged at each other’s hair.

And as it grew and became hotter it should have been _wrong_ and _sick_ and _bad_ and _twisted_ but instead it was just…perfect. Dean was grinding down against him and Sam could feel his erection hard and thick and they were both panting in the dark and surging against one another, almost fighting as they struggled, the friction perfect and delicious and Sam’s face was flushed with exertion and the realization that this was his first sexual situation with anyone ever and it was going to be dry humping of all things but then Dean’s teeth latched on to his neck and he thrust down with just the right pressure to make Sam come apart beneath him.

Dean came not long after then rolled off and the air was damp and filled with their rushed breaths. Dean got up first and went to the bathroom. No doubt to peel his pants off and Sam found himself doing the same in the darkness of the room. In fact he tore all of his clothes off and crawled beneath the covers and he tried to think about what had just happened and how he should feel about it.

He knew how he _should_ feel.

But that was different from how he _actually_ felt.

He felt…better.

Like how someone might feel after drinking something when they’re very thirsty. Refreshed. New. Just…better.

When Dean finally came out of the bathroom he went over to their father’s bed and lay down. The room was still dark and still quiet until Dean whispered, “Sammy…”

“Yes.”

“What just happened…it-it didn’t. Okay? Just forget it.”

Sam licked his lips and nodded even though Dean couldn’t see him.  And the cold stone that had been sinking down deep inside him returned, this time a little icier than before.

So yes, that’s how it started but it wasn’t how it stayed. It happened again. Of course it happened again. It almost _had_ to happen again. Sam was just at a point where he had even convinced himself he had imagined it when  it happened again. It was so much later. It was after Stanford and after Jessica and even after Dad died. Actually, it was probably _because_ Dad died.

Sam and Dean only had each other now. That was it. That was their family. That was the Winchesters. Just Sam. Just Dean. And sure they had Bobby and Ellen and Jo but that was all periphery, really. It was just them in the end. Just Sam and Dean.

And it was Dean too drunk and too out of it to really care. Sam, no excuse, really. He was sober and knew better and had really, really moved on from his weird obsession, his weird hero worship of his older brother and he frankly hated the life and hated all of it except for this. This fucked up thing where they were once more in a shitty motel room, with nothing on the television (like always) and the stench of old beer and cigarettes hugging the air as Dean ignored his bed in favor of Sam’s. Or in favor _of_ Sam maybe, because he climbed on top of him like he owned him and kissed him with his eyes closed.

And Sam could taste tequila and salt and lemon and he was more than prepared to push Dean away until Dean opened his eyes and his look was so open, so pleading that Sam couldn’t help but cup his face, angle his head and kiss him more deeply. They never talked during it and Sam realized that that was the key. That was the thing. That was what made this all okay and made it work. In that moment they were in another universe, in an alternate reality. They were in a place where they _weren’t_ brothers and they weren’t the goddamn _Winchesters_ of all things.

They were just two lonely people.

Lonely people who needed each other. Who needed comfort. Who needed to be held and kissed and caressed and yeah, sometimes they got off on it but sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they were just in this soundless bubble of peace. That was the crux of it. It was peaceful. They hardly ever felt peace. And there, in this little slice of a world, there was no such thing as incest or right or wrong or demons or heaven or hell or anything that would interfere because it was so quiet and secret and serene.

And it went on and on like that and more often than not Dean was drunk and Sam really thought about telling him that he might have a goddamn drinking problem but he never did because his whole yellow-eyed demon destiny was revealed and then there was hell waiting for Dean and there was nothing else, nothing more important than having this more and more and each time they fell into their nameless world it felt more perfect than the last until there were no more times because Sam couldn’t save Dean.

He couldn’t save him.

But Castiel could.

And that’s when it really started to fall apart.

Though they never, ever talked about it Sam would occasionally, in private moments, reflect on their affair and think that a lot of it probably had to do with Dean’s disbelief that he could be gay. Or even bisexual. It wasn’t that Dean looked down on people who were or even didn’t support them but it was more that he himself could not envision himself as someone who would be involved with the same sex.

He liked women. He was a ladies man. He was straight and that was the end of his orientation. There was no fluidity. And Sam was at a point where he agreed with him. He only saw Dean as straight and himself as straight and the thing that occasionally passed between them didn’t count because it was a strange aberration in the pocket world they had created for themselves.

But then Dean had gone to hell and Castiel had saved him and it all changed so dramatically.

Because it was clear that Dean felt something for Cas.

It’s like this – Dean comes back from hell and, naturally, he and Sam end up back on the road and back to fighting things that go bump in the night. It’s all status quo. Except for the asterisk where they occasionally collapsed into one another. That’s erased. Dropped from the screenplay of their lives. As if it never existed and as if it never happened. It doesn’t matter how smashed Dean gets, there’s none of it. That world is gone. Destroyed. Annihilated.

In its place is a world where Dean tries to convince Castiel to join them and Sam finds himself running off to Ruby more and more because at least he’s getting some kind of attention and there is Lucifer and angels and Armageddon and an army man crammed in the Impala’s ashtray that leads to one of them going to hell again.

And then it’s Sam who’s back from the dead and nothing changes from before except that Castiel really _is_ a fixture now. And yeah – no more Ruby but really, everything else comes back from before – even Lucifer and then there’s Crowley and Abaddon and Naomi and Dean in Purgatory making friends with Benny and _still_ with Cas and they share a profound bond and looks and Sam is totally and utterly alone.

He has no one.

He has nothing.

So, when the chance to close the Gates to Hell comes there’s really no reason for Sam not to do it, to not do the trails and yeah, he’ll probably die but at least he’ll atone for how often he let Dean down and then Dean’s there telling him not to but it doesn’t really matter.

He wants to die. He’s _choosing_ to die this time. And he doesn’t want to come back. He _never_ wants to come back. He tells Death as much. He wants to go and he wants Dean to move on and to be with Castiel if he can ever get his head out of his ass enough to do that because it’s clear that that’s what Dean wants and that what he and Dean had is gone.

Or at least he thought it was, until Dean wouldn’t even give him the courtesy of letting him go. Talk about stupid. Talk about selfish. Dean shoves in angel into him (and Sam’s kind of amazed it isn’t fucking Cas, honestly – and he doesn’t hate Cas, he really doesn’t, but still…) and keeps him alive.

Keeps him alive so he can watch Dean and Castiel get closer and closer. So he can continue to grieve for a soundless bubble of peace and (drunken but good) kisses in the dark. And that’s where it ended. How it ended. And all Sam can feel is the large, cold icy stone in the very center of him that he knows, without a doubt, will never melt.


End file.
